Legal Position of the Entrants

The CEO placed the advertisement for Charlie’s Chocolate Ltd on a national newspaper on 4th October 2019. A public advertisement is an invitation to initiate negotiations to make a binding offer. Therefore, the advertisement is not legally binding in that the company is not obliged to do what it says it will do in the advertisement (Feinman and Brill, 2006).

An advertisement, however, may be an offer making it a binding contract (McGinnis, 1988). The following constitutes the elements which may make an advertisement an offer;

The advertisement is definite because it has specified descriptions, prices and quantity.

The advertisement has been communicated to specific people (it is directed to a limited number of people).

Accordingly, the advertisement by Charlie’s Chocolate Ltd is an offer because it shows the intent of the company to enter into a contract in the following aspects;

The company advertises 20 Badges that it states are hidden in various parts of the UK and anybody who retrieves any will receive a prize.

The advertisement gives directions for how an interested person may be able to retrieve the Badge; buy 8 Charlie Chocolate Wonder Bars, post to the company the 8 Chocolate Bar wrappers, provide name and address, get the book of clues sent by the company and, locate and retrieve the Badge.

This makes the advertisement definite by the description and quantities stated.

The advertisement contains details showing the company’s intent to enter into a contract.

The company first states that if an entrant retrieves the Badge and submits it, they will be given 25,000 pounds. The company also states that if an entrant buys 8 Chocolate Bars and proves to have bought the Bars by posting the wrappers, the company will send them a book of clues to enable them to retrieve the Badge. To a reasonable person, reading the advertisement with these conditions one would believe that the advertiser intends to enter into an agreement. Any entrant who would meet these conditions would be presumed to have accepted the offer (Cohen, 2000). If you are seeking law dissertation help, evaluating such scenarios within contract law can offer valuable insights.

Based on this observation and explanation, Charlie’s Chocolate Ltd.’s advertisement is a unilateral contract. A unilateral contract is a contract by an offeror in which case, the offer can only be accepted by performance (Clark, 2000). The offeror promises in exchange for an act of performance by the offeree. The only way a unilateral contract is accepted is if the offeree completely performs the actions request (Suff, 2013). Accordingly, if any person who performed the actions requested in Charlie's Chocolate Ltd.’s advertisement would be accepting the offer.

The legal position of Anezka

Upon seeing the advertisement on the day when the advertisement was published, Anezka performed the actions requested by the advertisement and therefore accepted the offer making Charlie’s Chocolate Ltd obliged to award her. Anezka purchases 8 of Charlie's Chocolate Bars and posted the wrappers to the company. The company acted by sending the book of clues and therefore explicitly declaring its intentions to enter into an agreement with Anezka.

However, before Anezka could retrieve the Badge which she did on 17th of October 2019, Charlie Chocolate Ltd placed another advertise on all newspapers stating to have withdrawn the prize on 15th, 2 days before Anezka retrieve a Badge.

Up to this point, the question is, would Anezka still receive the prize? Rather, can an advertiser withdraw an offer after the ad has been considered an offer?

An offer is not revocable after the offeree has acted in reliance upon the offer and the offeror has not given out the benefit (Ramlogan and Persadie, 2012). However, there are reasons when it is revocable following the termination of the offrees’ power of acceptance due to the reasons below;

Lapse or expiration of the offer

The offeree rejects the offer

There is a counteroffer by the offeree

Revocation by the offeror

By the operation of law

There was no lapse or expiration of the offer which is the most common reason for terminating the power of acceptance. The company had not stated a fixed period when the offer would lapse. However, if such a period had not been set, like in the current case, the power of acceptance is said to expire after a reasonable period. And, what constitutes a reasonable amount of time is primarily dependent on the circumstances of the offer (Frey, 2015). The offer under consideration here was only 2 weeks old. Was this a reasonable amount of time? The answer to this is no, especially because there were two acceptances involve, the first one by the entrant involving purchasing and sending the Chocolate Bar wrappers and the second acceptance was by the company after receiving the wrappers, Charlie’s Chocolate Ltd sent the book of clues. Also, the offeree did not reject the offer, there was no counteroffer, no legal operation directed the offer to be revoked, and the offeror had not revoked it. Therefore, Anzeka has the legal power to claim the prize of 25,000 pounds.

Malakai Legal Position

Unlike Anzeka, Malakai did not accept the offer because he just found a discarded copy of the book of clues that helped him retrieve the Badge. Also, since the offer was cancelled on 15th October 2019, and Malakai found the book on 16th October 2019, the power of acceptance for Malakai or any other entrant had already been terminated. Lastly, this advertisement had required acts that both the offeree and the offeror had to perform to make it a binding contract. For these reasons, Malakai has no legal power to claim the prize of 25,000 pounds.

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References

Clark, D., 2000. Revocation and the unilateral contract: A reappraisal. NZL Rev., p.17.

Cohen, L.E., 2000. The Choice of a New Generation: Can an Advertisement Create a Binding Contract. Mo. L. Rev., 65, p.553.

Feinman, J.M. and Brill, S.R., 2006. Is an Advertisement an Offer-Why It Is, and Why It Matters? Hastings LJ, 58, p.61.

Frey, M.A., 2015. Essentials of contract law. Cengage Learning.

McGinnis, J.D., 1988. Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Company: Influenza, Quackery, and the Unilateral Contract. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 5(2), pp.121-141.

Ramlogan, R. and Persadie, N., 2012. LAW OF OBLIGATIONS: CONTRACTS: 2.1 CONTRACT. In Commonwealth Caribbean Business Law (pp. 69-87). Routledge-Cavendish.

Suff, M., 2013. Essential Contract Law. Routledge-Cavendish.